The Vatican Musea ... the framework
The Vatican Musea ... the framework
Let’s do a guided tour of the Vatican Museum ....
Read first this introduction and follow the external links to explore the different rooms.
Personally, I think it’s the most eclectic museum in the world. In other museums, worldwide, you close the door behind you and you speak about the works of art exposed. Not the Vatican Museums. As just as you walk in, we have to speak about 3000 years of human history.
The location is the Vatican Hill - Mons Vaticanus -. It is not one of the seven hills of Rome, but a hill just on the other side of the Tiber. It was here that the Agrippina Minor, the mother of the emperor Nero had a villa. Her profession? ... being a serial killer. (follow the link about Nero) She was for sure of very low morals. She even had an incestuous relation with her brother - an other madman - the emperor Caligula. That one had built beneath the villa a small circus. This got enlarged by Nero who commissioned also the obelisque that’s now in the middle of St. Peter’s square. Just before entering the sacristy of the the basilica you can find the mark on the ground where it originally stood in the center of the circus. Outside the circus was a cemetery where, following the tradition, St. Peter was buried. You can visit the cemetery by applying for an official guided tour of the Vatican: the Scavi.
In the year 313 AD the emperor Constantine approved christianity with the edict of Milan. He also build the four large basilica’s of Rome: two outside the wall: St. Peter and St. Paul outside the wall, and two inside the wall: Santa Croce in Jerusalem and San Giovanni in Laterano. The latter, former residence of his mother Saint Helen, became the papal residence. Until today is is the “Mother of all Churches”.
On Christmas 800, Charlemagne is crowned in the old St. Peter’s Basilica as emperor of The Holy Teutonic Empire. As donation he gives the Holy father the piece of land surrounding the old St. Peter’s basilica (not forgetting to keep a little piece for himself as a pied-à-terre: the Camposanto Teutonico) and some land in the middle of Italy. Those will be become the beginning of the Pontifical States.
After his dead, and the devision of his empire among the three sons -as was a tradition in the Frankish law- his empire get divided.
In 864 we have the sac of Rome by the Saracens, a real and proper pillage of everything that was outside the old city walls. The old Saint Peter’s basilica was “filled to overflowing with rich liturgical vessels and with jeweled reliquaries housing all of the relics recently amassed", and an easy target.
The Pope was still living on the top of the hill, Saint John in Lateran, inside the city-walls of Rome.
Year after year, the battle for obtaining the papacy became more ferocious. Every country wanted his cardinal on the chair of st. Peter, especially because there was a lot of money involved with papacy. And it happened that in 1305 a french cardinal became pope under the name of Clement V. He preferred to live as a King in France, and moved the capital of Christianity in 1309 to Avignon, France. Only until 1378 they lived in France, but what they built in those years is impressive. The whole city is the palace of the pope. There was indeed a lot of money involved in the papacy. (follow link Where popes lived)
When the popes finally returned to Rome in 1378, their palace on top of the hill, Saint John in Lateran was in disrepair and the old aqueducts of the Romans were gone. So, he decided to live in the compound of the Vatican walls, build by Leo IV after the pillage of 846. At least there was water in the vicinity of the Tiber.
The collection of the Vatican Museums started with the founding of the Laocoon in the golden house of Nero. Over the years, each pope added something to the collection. We are talking of the Vatican Museums, in plural.
From here, we are going to visit different collections, gathered together over the centuries, until we leaving the collection by entering in the rooms of Raphael, just before the sistine chapel. Prepare yourself for a long walk.
Read this first before starting your visit ......
We built over the years a profound friendship, because in the association we can only use our christian name and not our academic titles, because the leaders are the students. So, Pope Benedict was and is for me Josef, and I am Frank for him.
And a must to understand with me the whole museum is reading the article about the difference between those two giants of philosophy: Plato and Aristotle.
After the framework we will get started with the pinacoteca, the painting gallery ......
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The Vatican Musea ... the framework